The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.

Lunar occultation of Mars

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed

Objects: Mars

The Moon will pass in front of Mars, creating a lunar occultation visible from Northern America, Europe, western Russia, Alaska and Africa. Although the occultation will only be visible across part of the world – because the Moon is so close to the Earth that its position in the sky varies by as much as two degrees across the world – a close conjunction between the pair will be more widely visible.

Unfortunately the occultation will not be visible from Fairfield, though it will be visible from western parts of the Contiguous United States.

The map below shows the visibility of the occultation across the world. Separate contours show where the disappearance of Mars is visible (shown in red), and where its reappearance is visible (shown in blue). Solid contours show where each event is likely to be visible through binoculars at a reasonable altitude in the sky. Dotted contours indicate where each event occurs above the horizon, but may not be visible due to the sky being too bright or the Moon being very close to the horizon.

Map showing where the occultation is visible

Outside the contours, the Moon will not pass in front of Mars at any time, or is below the horizon at the time of the occultation. However, a close conjunction between the pair will be visible across much of the world.

The map can be downloaded in PNG , PDF or SVG format. A KMZ file , is also available, which can be opened in Google Earth to provide a higher resolution map.

The animation below shows the path of the occultation across the Earth's globe. The red circle shows where the Moon appears in front of Mars.

You can download this video in MP4 or OGG format.

A complete list of the countries and territories where the occultation will be visible is as follows:

Country Time span
(UTC)
Canada 05:41–08:13
Greenland 06:43–08:24
Russia 06:12–08:38
Alaska 05:45–07:08
Algeria 08:16–09:19
The Contiguous United States 05:40–06:49
Sweden 07:33–08:40
Norway 07:31–08:38
France 07:55–09:06
Finland 07:33–08:28
Spain 08:05–09:14
Germany 07:51–08:56
Poland 07:52–08:47
Morocco 08:21–09:18
Italy 08:02–09:08
Great Britain 07:41–08:56
Svalbard 07:14–08:01
Belarus 07:51–08:40
Iceland 07:19–08:30
Ukraine 07:55–08:47
Mauritania 08:43–09:17
Tunisia 08:15–09:15
Mali 08:46–09:18
Hungary 07:59–08:53
Ireland 07:45–08:53
Romania 07:59–08:52
Latvia 07:48–08:34
Czechia 07:57–08:51
Portugal 08:08–09:13
Lithuania 07:50–08:37
Austria 07:59–08:56
Western Sahara 08:43–09:16
Serbia 08:02–08:57
Estonia 07:47–08:31
Denmark 07:47–08:43
Croatia 08:02–08:59
Slovakia 07:58–08:50
Bosnia and Herzegovina 08:03–08:58
Netherlands 07:52–08:51
Switzerland 08:01–08:59
Belgium 07:55–08:54
Slovenia 08:02–08:56
Northern Ireland 07:46–08:48
Montenegro 08:05–08:58
Corsica 08:07–09:04
The Canary Islands 08:41–09:13
Faroe Islands 07:34–08:34
Mallorca 08:12–09:10
Luxembourg 07:57–08:54
Albania 08:06–08:58
Shetland 07:39–08:36
The Portuguese Azores 08:14–09:02
Aland Islands 07:45–08:28
Orkney 07:41–08:39
Svalbard and Jan Mayen 07:18–08:14
Menorca 08:12–09:08
Isle of Man 07:48–08:48
Ibiza 08:14–09:10
Andorra 08:08–09:06
Jersey 07:57–08:56
Guernsey 07:56–08:56
Melilla 08:21–09:15
Gibraltar 08:20–09:14
Vatican 08:08–09:02
Liechtenstein 08:01–08:56
Monaco 08:06–09:02
San Marino 08:05–08:59
Madeira 08:30–09:11
The Savage Islands 08:41–09:11
Isla de Alborán 08:20–09:14
Islas Chafarinas 08:21–09:15

Lunar occultations are only ever visible from a small fraction of the Earth's surface. Since the Moon is much closer to the Earth than other celestial objects, its exact position in the sky differs depending on your exact location on Earth due to its large parallax. The position of the Moon as seen from two points on opposite sides of the Earth varies by up to two degrees, or four times the diameter of the full moon.

This means that if the Moon is aligned to pass in front of a particular object for an observer on one side of the Earth, it will appear up to two degrees away from that object on the other side of the Earth.

The position of Mars at the moment of the occultation will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Mars 07h30m00s 24°29'N Gemini -1.1 0'14"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

Next/previous occultations

« Previous Next »
Visible from the Contiguous United States Worldwide Worldwide Visible from the Contiguous United States
07 Jun 2038 11 Sep 2039 Occultations of Mars 30 Dec 2039 09 Jan 2042
25 Sep 2039 19 Nov 2039 Occultations 12 Dec 2039 12 Dec 2039

The sky on 28 Mar 2024

The sky on 28 March 2024
Sunrise
06:40
Sunset
19:13
Twilight ends
20:47
Twilight begins
05:06

18-day old moon
Waning Gibbous

85%

18 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:08 13:57 20:46
Venus 06:08 11:53 17:38
Moon 21:47 02:58 08:00
Mars 05:29 10:52 16:16
Jupiter 08:21 15:22 22:23
Saturn 05:52 11:26 17:00
All times shown in EDT.

Source

The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE430 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.

Related news

23 Nov 2039  –  Mars enters retrograde motion
28 Dec 2039  –  Mars at perigee
02 Jan 2040  –  Mars at opposition
09 Feb 2040  –  Mars ends retrograde motion

Image credit

The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.

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Fairfield

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41.14°N
73.26°W
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